Reciprocity
by Yvi
Summary: [Wicked, WIP] Glinda does Elphaba a favor, but doesn't get the reaction she expects.
1. Levitation 101

* * *

­Disclaimer: _Wicked_ belongs to Gregory Maguire. _The Wizard of Oz _belongs to L. Frank Baum. _Nothing whatsoever _belongs to me.

Notes: AU derived from bookverse, takes place after Doctor Dillamond has died and Nanny and Nessarose have come to Shiz.

* * *

There was nothing unusual about a group of students seating themselves at a table outside one of the university cafés. It was a common enough pastime on weekends. Most of them, however, came to eat or study, while this gathering seemed to be doing neither and was attracting several bewildered glances from passerby on account. The center of attention was a pretty girl, slightly built, with a spill of shining hair caught back in a cranberry-colored ribbon that matched the elaborate embroidery on her dress. Her eyes were bright, her hands squarely on her hips, and she was glaring vengefully at a glove in the middle of the table. Anyone else would have looked ridiculous. Glinda just looked like an irate fashion ad.

­"You see, it's really very easy," she was saying. "It requires absolute concentration, though, which is pretty much impossible to attain." The last few words were directed pointedly at Milla, who was snickering.

"Come off it, Glinda," Boq said kindly, obviously attempting to stifle a laugh. "You're more likely to make it run away than float if you keep staring at it like that."

Milla essayed to smother another fit of giggles in a lace-edged handkerchief and failed egregiously.

"I'm only staring because some people refuse to hold their tongues," Glinda answered primly. "­If you doubt my abilities, Miss Milla, you're more than welcome to leave. And if you could all be quiet for ten seconds and let me focus, you'd see how simple it is."

"So it's _not_ easy, you mean," corrected Elphaba. "If it's almost impossible to slip into the necessary state, I mean, how can it be?"

Glinda fixed her well-honed glare on her roommate, temporarily abandoning the glove she had been attempting to levitate for the past few minutes. She had given up on sandwiches after a few other messy efforts. Pfannee had not been nearly as good-natured as Elphaba regarding airborne condiments. "I _meant _it comes easily to those equipped with the proper environment. Which, it seems, is nowhere near here. It's beyond me how sorcerers ever manage in public."

Elphaba smirked. "If you don't think you'll be able to hold up in public, maybe you should consider a new line of work, then. There's no sense in getting all dressed up just to do spells by yourself in some tower all day."

Without bothering to reply, Glinda turned back to the glove and resumed, this time bending from the waist as if to put herself closer to eye level with the thing. For approximately three seconds, no one uttered a sound.

Then Avaric grinned, leaning his chair back on two legs. "Next thing you know she'll be talking to it, just like—"

Crope slapped him sharply on the arm before he could finish, nearly causing the chair to tip over. Across the table, Nessarose dipped her head and tsk-tsked quietly. For once, Avaric had the grace to look abashed.

Glinda, fortunately, seemed to have blocked out everything except the glove. The assemblage fell silent once again, this time in amazement, as it slowly rose and began to hover above the table. Glinda was muttering a string of stilted syllables under her breath. Deliberately, one finger of the glove rose. Then another and another until they fanned out like a proper hand. And then the glove precariously began to rock back and forth. It was waving at them.

Pfannee burst out laughing and it flopped back onto the table. Glinda dropped her hands in exasperation. "I'm sorry!" Pfannee apologized unconvincingly. "But you didn't see what your face looked like. Oh, it was priceless! So twisted up and furrowed, like an old lady's."

Even Boq couldn't keep from laughing at that. With the air of an offended princess, Glinda huffed loftily and flounced away.

* * *

Later in the day when Elphaba returned to their room, Glinda was already there.

"I've got it!" she announced triumphantly as Elphaba closed the door. "I've been working hard all afternoon, but I can do it now. Look!" Beaming, she made the glove parade in front of Elphaba's nose like an overgrown insect.

Elphaba restrained an urge to swat it. "Very nice."

From the look of things, her roommate had indeed been practicing for hours. The floor was scattered with scarves and other objects Elphaba assumed had previously taken flight, and the rest of the room was bedecked with all the rubbish Glinda claimed made it more "magical-looking." The curtains had been drawn, the lights dimmed and draped with spangled chiffon, and every surface was covered with the lilac-scented candles that Glinda swore helped clear her mind. Glinda herself was in a white satin dressing gown tied elaborately at the waist with a purple sash, her hair swept back in a tumbling cascade, with a jeweled headband resting low on her forehead in a manner that, in Elphaba's opinion, made her look like a toddler playing dress-up. For all her devotion to sorcery, and for all she had matured following Ama Clutch's incapacitation, Glinda had retained plenty of her old taste for the dramatic.

"This too!" chirped Glinda, sending a shoe somersaulting across the room.

Elphaba blinked. "Fascinating."

"And I made a dress do it, earlier. That's the biggest thing I've tried so far, bigger than anything we've ever done in class, so it was hard, but I managed. Here, I'll show you." She went to the closet and removed a silky, ribbony affair covered in lace.

"Better make sure it's an old one in case you explode it," Elphaba muttered, only half-jokingly.

"Nothing ever impresses you, does it?" Glinda grumbled, but she did select a slightly more casual gown. She grinned suddenly. "Someday I'll make _you_ float fifty feet off the ground; we'll see how stoic you are then."

"First things first," Elphaba reminded her with exaggerated courtesy, gesturing towards the dress.

Glinda stuck out her tongue and then dropped to one knee, arms extended, and began murmuring. Elphaba considered asking if the pose added to the potency of the spell, but thought better of it.

She waited patiently for a minute or two as Glinda alternately chanted and gestured. Nothing happened. Elphaba sank into a chair, figuring she would be there for a while. "Give up before your head explodes instead," she recommended.

"Elphie, be _quiet_!" Glinda shrieked in frustration. She stabbed a hand in the frock's direction and muttered furiously. This time, it lifted. "There, I told you I could do it!" she exclaimed, gesturing with her other hand.

As the two girls looked on, the frothy mess of cloth rose a few feet off the ground, brushed one of the ubiquitous lilac candles, and promptly caught fire. Glinda yelped, the dress fell, and the rug began to burn.

Elphaba shot to her feet. "_Shit, _Glinda…"

The first thing on Glinda's mind, irrationally, seemed to be saving the dress. Bare-handed, she dove forward and made a grab for it. After belatedly realizing the inanity of that plan, she cried out in pain and lurched backwards. Elphaba caught her by the shoulders from behind. "Are you insane?" she demanded.

Glinda shoved her aside, wild-eyed. "Forget that, just help me put it out. Get water! Hurry!"

Elphaba gave her a tremendous grimace, quickly scanned the room for anything liquid (there seemed to be nothing in sight but more of those damned candles), and rapidly calculated how much damage could be done by the time one of them ran to the lavatory and back. Glinda seemed to be thinking the same thing, as she wailed in aggravation and began jumping on the conflagration with small, slipper-shod feet. Almost immediately, the satin caught fire as well, ­and Elphaba threw the smaller girl out of the way in order to take over the task with her own heavy boots. Violently, she tore a blanket from her bed and began beating the flames with it. "Nanny! Help!"

Half-crying, half-yelling, Glinda wrenched open the door and bawled supplications into the hallway.

Nanny ran in from the adjoining room soon enough to take in the situation, Nessarose awkwardly following. By the time a cluster of students and Amas arrived on the scene seconds later, it was over. The rug had been blackened, a corner of Glinda's dresser was charred, the dress was ruined, and Elphaba was standing in the middle of the mess with a mangled blanket in her hand. The entire catastrophe had occurred in less than two minutes. As the girls gaped, Ama Vimp scurried around extinguishing the remaining candles.

Glinda was slumped against the wall, whimpering, flanked by Milla and Shenshen. Her headband had slipped down over one eye. Elphaba gazed at her from under a looped strand of hair than was falling out of its knot. "Everything all right?" she ventured, dropping the blanket to show her arm was unharmed. For some reason, that only made Glinda cry harder.

"Elphie, I'm sorry," she sobbed, darting forward and throwing her arms around the other girl. "It was such a stupid thing to do, light candles everywhere for that."

Elphaba wasn't about to argue with that, but she returned the hug. "It's all right."

"And you could have been hurt," Glinda continued, her voice muffled by Elphaba's shoulder. "You could have _died._"

The onlookers, Elphaba noticed gratefully, were politely beginning to drop their eyes. "It wasn't a very big fire," she mumbled, embarrassed. "We stopped it before it got too out of hand."

"That's not it." Glinda's streaming eyes met her own. "I didn't stop it, it was you. And you know what I mean—it would have hurt you a lot more than me if one of us had caught fire too." She was sobbing again. "If it was me, I could've put it out soon enough, but you…water…and you still…_Elphie_." She dove her face back into Elphaba's arm.

Nanny left them alone for a moment before gently prising the two apart, saying that both of them must be seen to for injuries and the headmistress should be notified about the damage to the room.

Elphaba was unscathed, but ­Glinda's hands were slightly burned from her dive at the dress. Once the doctors had made certain everything was in order, Glinda told Madame Morrible the accident had been caused by an overturned candle and left it at that, darting out of the headmistress's office quickly enough to escape a lecture. Neither one was terribly eager to return to the room, although some of the other Amas ­had seen to it that the dress and rug had been removed, and the charred part of the dresser had been disguised with an artfully draped tablecloth.

"Elphie, you have no idea how brave you were," Glinda said quietly as they somberly prepared for bed. "So much could have happened, but you put it out anyway. It was heroic of you."

Elphaba had no answer for that. She kissed one of Glinda's bandaged hands. "You stupid thing, look what you did to yourself."

"I'm not brave," Glinda said in an even softer voice. "I'm not brave, but I promise I'll repay you for what you did, somehow. ­­I'll do you a favor you'll never forget."


	2. A Rude Awakening

­Notes: Bumped the rating up to PG-13, as Elphaba can't seem to keep her language clean.

* * *

Word of Glinda's so-called experiment with pyrotechnics spread quickly through Shiz. Nessarose gave Elphaba one of her extra blankets to replace the one that had been scorched. ­ Milla, Pfannee, and Shenshen provided a replacement rug (in an eye-watering shade of pink). The Amas who had borne witness left flowers outside the door.

Glinda was delighted, and although Elphaba claimed she could appreciate altruism as much as the next person, she thought it was silly for anyone to leave flowers. "It's not as if the room died, you know," she pointed out. "Sorry to disappoint the florists, but it's nobody's funeral."

"Silly, they're for you. Don't you ever read the cards?" Glinda retorted, and put them in vases all over the room. "Commendations and the like. Of course, some of them are get-well presents for me," she added.

"Or job offers," Elphaba reminded her. The day before, someone had left an anonymous letter praising Glinda for her skill and asking why she hadn't set Madame Morrible's office up in flames instead.

The boys' college had apparently caught wind of the affair as well. The next time they met, Crope and Tibbett presented Glinda with a fanciful scroll proclaiming her to be a true sorcerer. "All the great ones have at least one good case of spontaneous combustion to their credit," Tibbett stated sagely. Boq gave her a pair of gloves, large enough to fit over her wrapped hands. Avaric made the inevitable warning against levitating them. Fiyero provided an ointment used for healing by warriors in the Vinkus. For her part, Elphaba­ avoided the limelight and relayed the entire story to Ama Clutch as the woman earnestly addressed her bedpan.

Rather than drinking up enough attention for both of them, as Galinda undoubtedly would have, Glinda took to disappearing for hours at a time. When questioned, she would distractedly reply she was studying for a special project. Elphaba could only hope it didn't involve levitation.

After nearly two weeks had passed, the incident was more or less forgotten.

* * *

On a midweek morning several days after the flowers and applause had ceased to arrive, Elphaba rose early, as she usually did, the better to wash up before any of the other girls were up and about. Leaving the lights off so as not to wake Glinda, she groggily went about gathering comb, soap, and oil. Something looked strange in the odd half-light of the room, but she was still too sleep-fogged to determine what it was and dismissed it as a product of some lingering dream. Yawning, she headed for the lavatory.

The hall was empty and much brighter than the room had been. For some reason, Elphaba's brain sleepily informed her, this was important. Something was nagging at her, something big. Halfheartedly, she made an effort to puzzle out what it was. _Wait. _Elphaba froze in mid-yawn.

She was suddenly wide awake. Something was wrong, very, very wrong. But it made no sense. Disjointed thoughts were tumbling through her head, becoming more and more confusing. The harder she tried to piece them together, the faster they swirled. _It's not possible. _She clenched her jaw impatiently, squeezing her eyes shut, hands clasping her head as if she would pull it off, trying to physically force her thoughts into something even remotely logical. _How could it happen?_ Exhaling vehemently, Elphaba flung her arms down and fisted her hands.

Her arms. Her hands.

And, abruptly, it all gave way, and the only thing in Elphaba's head was an echo of Glinda's voice the night of the fire, uncharacteristically soft and solemn.

_"I'll do you a favor you'll never forget."_

Elphaba was not given to screaming, but if this wasn't cause for exception she didn't know what was.

"Glinda!" she screamed.

Glinda darted into the hallway, wearing a lavender nightgown and a stricken expression. Her jaw dropped when she saw the cloud of fury that was her roommate. "Elphie!"

"What did you **_do_**?" Elphaba shrieked.

"Elphie, calm down! It worked!"

The note of wonder in Glinda's voice sounded like a deliberate insult. "Worked!" Elphaba roared.

"Yes, it worked!" She was smiling. Intolerable.

Elphaba threw a bottle of oil at her as hard as she could. It shattered against the wall; Glinda flinched when she was spattered. "Damn it, what did you _do_? _What did you** do**_?" She repeated the question over and over, louder and shriller each time, reaching a fever pitch, but never receiving an answer.

Doors were starting to open and inquisitive heads were appearing. Publicity was the last thing she needed. Elphaba swung her hair forward over her face and ran back down the hall. She grabbed Glinda by the elbow on her way. "We have to talk," she growled, dragging her into their room and slamming the door behind them.

Nanny was pounding on the adjoining door. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, fine, just a misunderstanding!" Elphaba called back quickly. "Go back to sleep."

­Her voice sounded perfectly calm, but her face was creased with anger and distress, and it crumpled as she turned back towards Glinda into an expression that on anyone else would have immediately preceded tears. The thickness of her voice when she spoke again also seemed indicative of them, but Elphaba's face remained dry. "Glinda," she rasped through clenched teeth. "Tell me what the _hell _you've done."

"I told you I would." Glinda was clasping her hands, now healed, in front of her as if they could serve as a shield.

"Told me _what,_ Glinda?"

"I told you I would do you a favor," Glinda answered, holding her head high. "And I did."

"A favor I'd never forget, wasn't that it?" Elphaba questioned with a mildness too sweet to be genuine.

"Exactly."

"I see. Well, fucking congratulations! I can personally assure you I will never forget this as long as I live, which, circumstances being what they are, looks like it's going to be a hell of a lot longer than you'll live."

Glinda swallowed. "But…you don't…"

"You don't just _change_ someone without telling them," her roommate raged.

"I was so sure you'd like it," she said lamely.

"You never asked," barked Elphaba.

"You were _green, _Elphie," Glinda practically screamed in a whisper. "You hated it and everyone knew it. You can't _miss _being green." Rapidly, she lit a lamp and seized a hand mirror from her dresser. "Here, just look at yourself now."

Elphaba snatched the mirror from Glinda's hand and dashed it to pieces against the wall.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

"You were green," Glinda finally repeated, her face set. "You were green and now you're not anymore, so if you're so determined not to appreciate it, you'd better at least get a good look at it."


	3. Legalities and Philosophies

­Notes: I've been horrible about posting this chapter, even though I finished writing it over a week ago. I thought of chucking it entirely, since there's little to it but conversation and I wanted to progress beyond that. But, here it is all the same. It looks like this fic is going to be insanely long unless I can get a handle on my overenthusiastic verbosity.

* * *

Stripped of its normal pigmentation, her complexion was pale—although Glinda reasoned it might well be white with fury—and less rosy than Glinda's own save an agitated spot of color flaring on either cheek where there had once only been a faint yellowish undertone. On the whole, it was an impressive transformation, but Glinda was tactful enough not to admire her handiwork. There were more pressing matters to attend to.

It was hard for her to believe all her efforts had come to nothing. Glinda swiftly recalled the copious notes stored under her bed, the hours spent barricaded in the library, the giddiness she had felt at the prospect of being able to give her roommate one of the few things she honestly wanted. The way she had carefully recited the correct words with practiced inflection over and over while Elphaba slept, finally collapsing into bed when she was sure she must have achieved something. The way she had restrained herself from peeling back Elphaba's tangle of blankets to see if the change had been immediate. ­­In hindsight, it was evident she had been so enthusiastic about her latest project that she had never considered Elphaba might be anything other than overjoyed at its result. Now, she could only hope the girl would come to her senses.

At the moment, it didn't seem likely. Elphaba was withdrawing into herself, more awkward than usual in her unfamiliar skin: limbs folding inward, shoulders hunching, hair hanging. One pale spider of a hand shot out to claim a quilt.

Numbly, Glinda sat down and waited for Elphaba to speak. After counting the minutes, watching the sun rise, and pretending to read, she resigned herself to the fact that, if one of them were to break the silence, it wasn't going to be Elphaba. That knowledge somehow failed to improve the situation. As impressive as Glinda's societal training had been, it had never taught her how to make conversation at such a time, and she had a feeling that piping, "Terribly sorry about that little spell, dear, care for some tea?" was not going to get her back in Elphaba's good graces. Just to be sure the other girl hadn't imploded from excessive anger and shock, Glinda even held her breath a few times to make sure she could hear Elphaba breathing. It was the least she could do, all things considered.

Fortunately, the sun was climbing higher in the sky and she had an excuse to busy herself elsewhere. Cautiously tiptoeing around her unmoving roommate, Glinda began readying herself for the day.

"You'd better get dressed," she ventured upon returning from the lavatory and finding Elphaba in the same position as before.

"I'm not going out there." The crisp answer was so unexpected it made Glinda jump.

"You've got class, Elphie."

"I can't go out there. Tell everyone I'm sick." Her dark eyes flashed feverishly from within the folds of the quilt and Glinda realized with a start that it could actually be true.

"I'll be back soon," she said tentatively. Elphaba made no reply.

* * *

When Glinda returned, Elphaba had emerged from the quilt and was hunched in a chair, still in her nightgown, poring over one of Glinda's schoolbooks. "I don't see anything in here on changing skin color," she noted casually, not so much as glancing up.

Glinda pursed her lips. "Won't you at least look at yourself?"

"I don't need to look." Elphaba's grip on the book tightened almost imperceptibly. "I know what you did to me. You took away a part of my self."

Bravely, Glinda moved a few steps closer. "You know I wasn't being malicious. I thought I could help you, since I'm studying sorcery and all."

"If you're so intent on using your powers to help others, then help those who need it the most. Help the Quadlings. Help Animals. Would you do that?"

Glinda hesitated. "If they asked me to and if I wouldn't be going against the law, then yes."

Elphaba's lips twitched ironically. "Key words: 'if they asked'. You never asked me. And then there's the matter of the law. Surely there's legislature against casting spells on people who don't ask for them."

Glinda had never considered that either. "Elphie, you wouldn't turn me in!" she blurted, more to convince herself than Elphaba. "I…I just really thought you'd like it," she mumbled, unable to dredge up a more eloquent explanation.

"You didn't think at all," snapped Elphaba. "Don't forget, the most well-meaning gestures can turn on you."

If she pursued this conversation, there was a good chance it would turn into one of Elphaba's tirades on good and evil. Desperate to avoid just that, Glinda opted for a non sequitur. "What were you carrying oil for?"

Elphaba sighed and threw down the book. "I use it for bathing, you twit. If you were going to change me in some way, you might at least have done something about water. It'd have been a lot more functional."

"That's too complex," Glinda admitted. "I'm nowhere near that skilled. You need to know about advanced sorcery and biology and all sorts of things in order to meddle around with things like that. Too much could have gone wrong it I'd tried, and I did think about it. But changing skin color wasn't too bad—there are all sorts of easy spells for turning things different colors; we've practiced with some in class. I just wrote my own, using those for a base, and applied it to a human instead. And it wasn't half as easy as I thought, since it works differently if you're not inanimate, but I did so much research to make sure nothing would go wrong."

For the first time, Elphaba met her eyes. "If you're so good at it, then change me back."

"Er." Glinda gulped. "I never exactly practiced that."

Elphaba exploded. "Oh, _hell._"She jumped to her feet and crossed to the smaller girl in two quick strides. "Isn't that one of the first rules of magic? Be able to undo anything you do? Glinda!"

­"But," Glinda added quickly, "if you really want it back, I promise to see what can be done. I'll read more, I'll try to figure out a reverse spell, I'll talk to Miss Greyling, I'll ask at the infirmary, I'll ask Madame Morrible if I have to."

"And have word get out about what you did to me? _That's _nice."

"Then what, pray tell, do you want me to do?"

Elphaba made no reply. Glinda took a deep breath and continued. "Listen, I'm meeting everyone for dinner later on. Will you please come? Maybe we can come up with something. If you won't trust professionals, you can at least trust your friends."

Elphaba shook her head violently.

"Oh, excuse me, I forgot: you don't trust anyone," Glinda minced sarcastically, throwing caution to the winds. "Wear a hood if you like, but let them know you're all right; everyone asked after you earlier and you should at least see Nessarose. And maybe the boys will be able to find some good information in their library. Of course, it would help if you told them yourself, or just showed them the, uh, problem. You really can't stay in here forever."

Elphaba muttered something that sounded like, "Oh, yes, I can."

Glinda assumed her most angelic expression. "Elphie, think about it," she wheedled in the honeyed voice that had never failed to extricate her from trouble. "I know we'll figure something out, together. Please?"


	4. Food for Thought

­Notes: This was an interesting chapter to churn out, as it's a little hectic writing scenes that include the entire "charmed circle." I always feel like I've left someone out, or that someone hasn't talked enough (sorry, Fiyero).

Also, thanks very much to everyone who's left feedback so far. Cookies to you all.

* * *

­The two of them arrived at the restaurant early, since Elphaba had vehemently dissuaded Glinda from her usual practice of fashionable tardiness. "It's insult to injury," she had snapped, "showing up late so the others can gape at me when I come in. We'll be the first there or we won't be there at all." Prudently, Glinda had given in without a fight.

Although it was a mild evening, Elphaba had shrouded herself in a long dress with close-fitting sleeves, covering her hands with two pairs of gloves as if she expected them to burn through the cloth and reveal their new state. Her face was hidden by the hood of the enormous cloak she normally wore in the rain. Glinda couldn't bring herself to mind overmuch; at least it effectively hid the glares Elphaba was undoubtedly still casting her way. And if Elphaba in all her trappings did garner strange looks as the two of them made their way to the restaurant, well, surely she was used to it by now. The irony, Glinda noted sardonically, was staggering.

Once they had taken a seat in the corner, Elphaba sank as far into her chair as possible. "You can…unwrap a bit now, if you like," Glinda told her, as tactfully as she could. "There's hardly anyone else about."

Elphaba revealed enough of her face to shoot Glinda a glance that clearly said, "I'm here, what else do you want?"

Glinda's lips involuntarily shifted into a pout. "You're making this much more difficult than it needs to be, you know."

The look in Elphaba's eyes seemed fierce enough to set the tablecloth aflame.

Fortunately, Boq chose that moment to bound over to their table and seat himself across from Glinda, closely followed by most of the circle. In the midst of their oblivious chorus of greetings, Elphaba tugged the cloak further down over her face.

When Milla, Pfannee, and Shenshen showed up as well, Glinda half-expected Elphaba to walk out of the restaurant then and there. Elphaba remained where she was, but somehow managed to turn her shrouded head towards Glinda in a manner that spoke volumes. The latter forced herself not to look apologetic. After all, she _had_ said she was meeting people for dinner, even if she hadn't exactly specified whom. But Elphaba had never asked, besides, so if she disapproved of the company, it was no fault of Glinda's.

As the three newcomers tittered conspicuously, Crope quizzically regarded the concealing hood. "Doing better, Elphie?"

­"That depends entirely on who you ask," the hood grumbled. Glinda grimaced and quickly hailed a waiter before the conversation could go any further.

Matters were forestalled until shortly after they had received their meals and Nessarose, noticing Elphaba's hands, announced it would be much easier to handle silverware without gloves on and that it was a warm night, besides.

"I'll be fine," Elphaba murmured, and went back to eating with her head curiously bent over the plate and her fork clumsily clenched in one hand.

"Nothing's wrong, is it?" Nessarose pressed. "Glinda said you weren't well and nobody's seen you all day."

"I'm fine, I said," Elphaba snapped, attempting to discreetly remove her outer layer of gloves.

Nanny clucked. "Not if you've got two gloves on each hand you're not. And why not take off that big cloak of yours? It's not the chills you have, is it?"

"No," Elphaba said quietly. "It's not the chills."

"Then what's going on?" Avaric demanded. "You look half mad, all swathed up like that."

Glinda heard Elphaba slowly draw a breath. "This morning," she proclaimed, "my _dear _roommate saw fit to give me a gift." She took off the second pair of gloves and made no move to hide her bare hands.

Nessarose, predictably, uttered a prayer. Avaric, just as predictably, swore. Nanny's swift intake of breath was overshadowed when Milla, Pfannee, and Shenshen squealed in unison. Tibbett, Crope, and Fiyero simply gawked dumbly. "But you're _pale_!" Boq blurted, lending a voice to what everyone was thinking. Then, looking closer. "You're…_very _pale."

"Nanny…" Nessarose began, but Nanny hushed her. Slowly, the old woman reached towards Elphaba and, when the girl made no move to stop her, pushed back her hood.

Pfannee's shriek practically shattered their glasses.

Elphaba looked murderous. "I was _going _to say I'd prefer that no one else know, but seeing as everyone within ten miles of Shiz must have—"

­"What happened?" several voices interrupted as one.

"Glinda," Elphaba said pointedly.

"I thought she'd enjoy it," Glinda retorted.

Boq was shaking his head and staring at Elphaba, looking rather pale himself. "Oh, no. She'd been talking about a surprise she had planned for you, but I didn't think she would do something so…ambitious. I mean, it's not that you look _bad_, but…" he trailed off.

Nanny was shaking her head as well, but grinning from ear to ear. "But this isn't bad at all! Just wait until your father—"

"No!" Elphaba burst out. "He's not going to hear a word of it. And neither," she gazed intently at each face in turn, "is anyone else. Everything will be fixed as soon as we figure out how."

­"Well, really, I think it's funny that you're all covered up now," said Milla, "like normal skin is something you should want to hide."

"For me it is, because it's not _me_. Understand?"

Milla obviously didn't understand at all, but Elphaba spoke the words so passionately it seemed best just to nod.

Fiyero was staring at his own dark, tattooed hands as if he had never seen them before. "And now you want to be the way you were?"

"We thought you might be able to find something in your library," Glinda jumped in. "If we all look hard, we're bound to turn up something. Naturally, the obvious and much simpler solution would be to speak with professors, but certain parties are averse to that idea."

Elpbaba scowled. "I beg your pardon, Miss Glinda, if I'm not overjoyed at the prospect of being smirked down upon by our esteemed headmistress—or, if she ever so magnanimously decides to proffer her assistance, indebted to her."

"Of course we can find something," Tibbett announced gallantly before an argument could occur. "We're the cleaning maids of culture, are we not? And if we all look at once, we can have something by tomorrow."

"No page unturned, no volume untouched!" Crope added, evidently attempting to sound like a seasoned soldier. Theatrically, he brandished a fork. "Who's with me?"

"I've got magazines that talk about powders meant to even out skin tone," Shenshen exclaimed, suddenly enthusiastic. "Maybe that could help you write a spell."

"Yes, very nice," Nanny interrupted, "but what does Elphaba do in the meantime?"

"I'm _not_ going to class like this," Elphaba declared quickly. "Coming here was enough."

­"I'll get books for her, too, and she can search from our room," Glinda said carelessly.

Nessarose frowned. "But Nanny's right; you can't hide in your room indefinitely. If you skip class until we find something useful, the rest of us might have already graduated."

Glinda looked pleadingly at her roommate. "If all else fails, will you see someone? You can't mean to miss much school."

Elphaba was visibly ambivalent. Thus far, she had only missed her classes once, the day after a sudden downpour had caught her unawares. Unlike Glinda, for whom having clashing petticoats or chipped nail varnish was excuse enough to stay in all morning, she had never skipped for pleasure, so in a sense she was entitled. Then again, there was no telling how long the researching process could go on.

"I'll miss a week," she said finally. "Just five days, counting the weekend, really," she added, more for her own comfort than the others'. "I can get notes easily enough, and I'm sure I won't be out long enough to fall very far behind."

"And if nobody's turned up anything by then, you'll get help elsewhere?"

"I don't suppose I'll have a choice, will I?" Elphaba said flatly, rising to her feet. "So we might as well get started now."

Crope jumped up and stabbed the air with his fork a second time. "Come on, then. To the libraries!"


	5. Comprehension

­Notes: It's taken me a little longer than I expected to get this chapter up and about, what with moving back to school and trying to get into an academic mindset. It's going to be a pretty hectic semester from the looks of it, but hopefully I'll be able to make room for fannishness. Thanks very much to everyone who's reviewed—and especially to Lan, for giving great input and letting me babble at her.

* * *

­"I don't _understand_," Glinda wailed. ­­"You can turn tea into toast and back, you can turn a person into a bird and back. It seems you can turn anything into _anything _and back. Why can't I change the color of her skin back to the way it was?"

After a week of searching, it had come to this. Glinda, in anguish, and Elphaba, still shrouded from head to heels, had gone to Madame Morrible. Miss Greyling had been first on the list—although she was limited in ability, Glinda had insisted she at least knew how sorcery worked and could tell _them _what to do. The information the instructor provided, however, was so haphazard that the girls had gone to the infirmary in defeat. The doctors, skilled far more in medicine than magic, suggested they see the headmistress.

They had gone back to their room to talk it over. Glinda had shrieked, Elphaba had thrown things, the entire dorm had assumed the two girls were killing each other, and the decision was made within an hour.

And now the headmistress was blinking her fishy eyes and condemning Elphaba to a pink and white life because Glinda hadn't known the proper formalities to be observed when creating a spell. "Simply put, the spell you used was not a legitimate one," she said, rather primly. "You can't just make up your own; there are long training programs for those who write spells, and hundreds of factors must be taken into account. No doubt you learned this the first week of class," she added crisply, which made Glinda flush.

"Magic," she continued, addressing Glinda as an exasperated mother would a recalcitrant child, "is more than thinking about something, waving your hand, and having it happen. By law, every existing spell is required to have a counterpart so that it may be undone. In creating your own, you silly thing, you neglected to take this into consideration. You can plead Miss Elphaba's case and see if the professionals will think up a spell to turn her back, but you'll have to pay for the commission. They take them sometimes in order to reverse spells gone bad, but this isn't fatal or overtly harmful, so they may not." She smiled frozenly. "And Miss Elphaba does, of course, have the option of pressing charges."

Elphaba seemed to be considering just that.

"And this, Miss Glinda, is what you get for meddling in sorcery too advanced for your learning," Madame Morrible concluded.

"But _she's_ not the one paying the price, is she?" Elphaba demanded.

"I didn't _mean_ for it to turn out this way." Glinda had plunged her face into her hands, crying. "Everything's my fault. I did it to my Ama, I did it to my roommate. Magic hasn't done me any good at all."

Elphaba made a small sound of disgust, clearing implying that, as far as she was concerned, Glinda certainly wasn't the one in need of comforting. Without another word, she rose and stalked out of the room.

* * *

Milla, Pfannee, and Shenshen were better at comforting, anyway. And, to Elphaba's despair, rather persistent about it. Glinda, disheveled and weepy, had been curled up on her bed in a crumpled ball of wrinkled skirts and mussed curls for the better part of an hour. She showed no sign of pulling herself together, her friends showed no sign of leaving, and Elphaba's grudge showed no sign of waning. Glinda had apologized to her several times already, and seemed so honestly distressed that Elphaba almost felt bad for her. But only almost.

"I still don't see what's wrong with it," Shenshen was saying, as she cut a pointed glance over to where Elphaba was pretending to study. "All right, so it wasn't legal, but you didn't know any better and it's all right anyway. Why won't she accept that?"

"It's not the point," Elphaba snapped from within her shroud for the umpteenth time, which sent Glinda into another crying fit.

"You're right, it really was a silly thing for her to do," Pfannee snapped back, "daring to think you might appreciate being rid of your…_singular_ skin tone. The very idea! It's such a sought-after look, after all; I can't imagine why _anyone_ wouldn't want to be green."

Elphaba was mildly surprised that Pfannee had enough brains to attain such levels of sarcasm, and said so.

"This is just silly," Milla complained over Pfannee's screeches. "There's nothing anyone can do right now, so you should just get up and get used to it. If you're doomed to looking like everyone else, you can at least learn how to enjoy it. Dress up, go dancing, get the full effect, but don't _sulk _about it."

Glinda perked up at that. "Yes! Elphie, come out, learn how different things are."

"So now you want me to parade myself in front of the masses as if I'm a completely different person? Were you trying to leech out my brainpower along with my skin color? I assure you, I still have some left."

­"Think of it scientifically," Glinda pleaded prettily. "_We_ know you're the same person, only with lighter skin, but not everyone else does. You can take note of how you were treated before and how you're treated now. You could write a groundbreaking, bestselling exposé!"

­Elphaba, appalled with herself, was starting to feel a sort of morbid curiosity. "I'd rather be alone now," she said firmly.

Shenshen blinked disbelievingly. "You've been alone all week, doing nothing but reading. It's time for a change. And please," she added quickly, "spare us and don't try to say something witty about change."

Elphaba bowed mockingly. "I'll be laconic instead: get out."

"What?" Shenshen attempted to sound nasty, but was obviously trying to determine the meaning of laconic.

"This is between Glinda and myself. You three are just a collective distraction, and not a very pleasant one."

"Let her talk," Glinda said wearily. "You don't want to be around if she really flies off the handle."

Elphaba frowned at that, but waited patiently as the other girls reluctantly made their way­ to the door. Glinda, all tears forgotten, was smoothing her dress and talking animatedly. "Elphie, we'll have such fun. We haven't been to any of the good taverns since before…well, you know. I'll have to wash up, my face is a horrible mess, but you'll look wonderful, just wait—"

Elphaba cut her off once the three girls had departed. "I don't believe you," she hissed. "I don't know what sort of logic you think you're following, but this does not make everything right again. Of all the ridiculous ideas. _Pretend it's scientific_?"

"So you'll come, then?" Glinda was already reaching for a hairbrush.

Hating herself for it, Elphaba lowered her hood. "Just this time, that's all, so don't get carried away. Because if I wake up with blonde curls tomorrow," she warned, "someone is going to pay."


	6. One After the Other

**Notes**: Hello again. School and work have been taking up the bulk of my time with considerable determination and I've rarely been able to write for pleasure. And I hate myself for it, but this finally-finished bit is the as-good-as-obligatory "Glinda gives a makeover" chapter. It's rather haphazard makeover, at least; if I tell myself this often enough, it almost redeems the cliché. I'm intent on not merging the harsh bookverse Elphaba with the much sweeter Elphaba from the musical, and I assure you the next chapter won't contain half as much frivolity as this one.

* * *

If anyone had told her she would be in this position, Elphaba thought, she would have been too disdainful to dignify them with an answer. But here she was, pale and passive, submitting to her roommate's ministrations in spite of herself. It was hard to sum up the situation, but she managed. "This is ridiculous."

"Don't be such a cynic," Glinda retorted, a little too quickly for Elphaba's comfort. You look…nice."

That was enough to loosen Elphaba's tongue again. "I look idiotic. And I'd like to point out that you do not by any means have free reign over my appearance just because I no longer clash with most of your wardrobe."

Glinda had done her best to beautify Elphaba's plain blue dress by tying shawls at the waist and scarves at the neck and relying fervidly on jewelry, but the excessive frippery only looked awkward. Her myriad attempts to style the other girl's abundance of hair had resulted in several abandoned efforts and a few ridges that she had tried to flatten with pomade. Elphaba's tolerance had worn out altogether when Glinda came at her with cosmetics. "Elphie, I'm doing what I can. Remember, it's all scientific."

Elphaba shrugged, not particularly apologetically. "There are limits, you know. Besides," she said smugly when Glinda, having exhausted Elphaba's half of the closet, cast a speculative glance at a floral gown on her own side, "­I'm about three heads taller than you."

"You do have a point there. Nessa's nearer your height than I am; can't you borrow something?"

"Glinda, you may find this hard to believe, but Nessa's dresses are custom-made."

"Oh. Can you at least borrow a skirt?"

"_No._"

"Of course you can!"

"I'm not letting my sister see me like this, looking like an unhappy alliance between a dancehall and a carpet shop."

­"Don't be silly; no one in a dancehall wears skirts as long as yours. And if you don't like my choice of apparel, then I'm sure Nessa and Nanny can't do any worse." With surprising strength, Glinda seized Elphaba by the wrist and bodily tugged her off her bed and towards the door.

"Miss Elphaba is here to beg a skirt off her sister!" she announced cheerfully, ignoring Elphaba's deepening scowl. "We're going out this evening and, as you can see, something has to be done."

Nanny looked up and discreetly turned a titter into a cough, but Nessarose gaped with unabashed disbelief. Elphaba, with her hair slopped about her face in crooked sheets and her shapeless dress cinched in here and there with Glinda's impractical accessories, drew herself up in an attempt at dignity that only made her sister burst out laughing. "I am not here to beg anything. I am striving to make the best of circumstances and, for the moment, 'best' does not seem to be something I am allowed to define for myself."

Nessarose uttered a few giggle-obscured words that Nanny translated as, "Try the red one with the stitching at the hem."

"Good luck," she called as Glinda absconded with it, Elphaba in tow.

In the end, Elphaba wore the skirt paired with a blouse of Glinda's—sleeveless, at the latter's insistence that anything long-sleeved would have been far too short in the arms. ­ Elphaba was the taller of the two, but thinner, and the blouse that fit closely on Glinda was slightly loose on her, but there was no helping it. Despite Glinda's less-than-subtle hints, Elphaba had vehemently refused magical aid with her hair and instead pulled it back in a plain braid, although at Glinda's urging she fastened it with an ornamental clip. "Very aristocratic," Glinda declared. "But don't glare at everyone, for heaven's sake."

"It's stunning," Elphaba deadpanned, staring at her harsh-faced reflection in the window. "As are you. Between the two of us, in fact, we are _so_ stunning it might not be the brightest of ideas to leave unaccompanied."

Glinda giggled dismissively. "Don't even try. After all that trouble, we are absolutely not spending the night indoors. If you really want to stall—excuse me, I mean if you'd rather have company—I suppose I could go find Boq."

Elphaba snorted. "A fine protector. He'd get stepped on."

"Well then, that's that. There's nothing to be afraid of, anyway." Grinning and striking a pose, she offered her arm. "Shall we?"

"Fear is nothing but squandered passion, and I'm certainly not afraid of a tavern," Elphaba answered, after only a moment's indecision, and took it.

The trouble began before they had even hailed a cab. As they left Shiz, Elphaba caught sight of Fiyero and quickly covered her face with one hand.

Glinda was unfazed. "What are you doing? We should invite him along; he'll be a good element to add to your experiment."

"He most assuredly will not! There's no need to assemble a horde." Elphaba was beginning to wish, not for the first time, that she had resisted the pull of Glinda's metaphor.

"One more person is hardly a horde," Glinda scoffed. "­The more the merrier, that's how it goes, and you need to relearn how to be merry, insomuch as you knew how before." And before Elphaba could stop her, she turned and waved. ­"Master Fiyero! Fiyero! Over here!"

* * *

They arrived in a state of surliness. Glinda was annoyed at Elphaba's pettishness, Elphaba was annoyed at having yet another injustice heaped upon her, and Fiyero seemed to be trying to become invisible. Glinda had been telling Fiyero of the day's events in some detail, partially to put him at ease and partially to incite Elphaba into speaking again. But by the time they had sat down and gotten a bottle of wine, she was still stony-faced.

­"I told her it would be interesting to see how people reacted to her this way," Glinda muttered, more to Elphaba at this point than Fiyero. "Of course, if she insists on being her typically saturnine self, I doubt there will be much of a change."

"It's only one night," Fiyero finally spoke. "A lot can happen in one night."

It was a good evening; the place was fairly full and a few fiddlers were nonchalantly playing on the opposite side of the room. After several minutes, they struck up a livelier tune and people began rising to dance. Glinda glanced at her roommate and smiled. Elphaba blanched, but was promptly pulled to her feet. "You're glaring again," Glinda whispered. "Make an effort!"

Glinda, of course, was swept off instantly in a swirl of rose-colored skirts. Fiyero was accosted by a girl who boldly began asking about his tattoos; judging by his replies, this was a fairly routine conversation starter. Elphaba was left standing off to the side, feeling foolish and wondering if she could discreetly slip out the side door. She was prepared to make a break for it when someone tapped her shoulder and asked her to dance.

"_What_?" Automatically, she swiped away the hand. "Why me?"

He was a college boy, not one she had ever been introduced to, which hardly mattered. Everyone at school had heard of the green girl. Then again, she wasn't the green girl anymore, and this apparently came with some indignities of it's own. "I think you look very nice," he said, half amused, half mocking, and tried to take her hand.

She ducked away in something akin to panic. "Idiot, are you blind? Allow me to point out the rather glaring fact that I'm gr—"

"Elphie!" Glinda sang out, twirling by.

"Greasy," Elphaba finished flatly. "Grounded. Gracious. Anything but green." She left the boy befuddled and strode towards the door.

Before she had made it halfway, Glinda stepped in front of her.

"Move," ordered Elphaba. "I'm going back to the dorm."

Glinda showed no sign of doing so. "You've hardly been here at all!"

"If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, let me know how easy you find it." Glinda winced and moved back at that, but not before Elphaba had reached forward and grabbed a handful of her curls. "This is not a matter of how I look," she said in a low voice, "it's a matter of how I am, and I am not the sort of person who dances."

"You've never given yourself a chance to find out," Glinda squeaked. "Anyway, you can't let the initial shock beat you down. Try to enjoy yourself. Pretend you're me—or" she added, when Elphaba arched an eyebrow, "at least a little like me." Glinda seemed to think she had staged a fairly persuasive argument. But Elphaba still had a tight hold on her hair, and her face wore a look that suggested she was contemplating pounding her roommate's pretty head against the wall until it resembled a smashed pumpkin wearing a wig.

Then, surprisingly, Elphaba loosened her hold. "I don't even know how."

"­You can learn." Fiyero, who had slipped away from his loquacious partner, extended a hand. "I'll even offer my services."

Glinda, safely out of arm's length, looked satisfied, but Elphaba drew back. "How chivalrous of you. Perhaps we can trade anecdotes regarding the good fortune of being born without the promise of pallor or the benefit of blush. You understand it all, there's no doubt, and as touching as the invitation is, I must decline."

It was the first time she had ever mentioned Fiyero's appearance and for a second he looked taken aback. "Intellect aside," he answered shortly. "I'm trying to be kind to you because I think you deserve it, even if you don't believe that yourself. There's no ulterior motive. The whole world isn't out for your blood, you know," he added, drifting over to his partner from before. "You're not important enough for that."

"Not yet, anyway," Glinda muttered, but Elphaba hardly heard her. It was her first instinct to sneer and twist away, but although Fiyero's words had been harsh, his tone had not. It was not a combination to which she was accustomed, and to her chagrin, Elphaba found herself left without an adequate rejoinder.

Quickly, Glinda took hold of the other girl's hands before she could utilize them again. "Just shift your feet along with your partner and twirl whenever he lifts his arm. We're in a pub, not a palace."

"Excuse me? My partner?"

"That would be me. Come on."

It was a strange thing, dancing with Glinda, somehow stranger than dancing at all. Glinda led, and Elphaba had to bend slightly to make the turns without letting go of her hand. At first it was mildly embarrassing, but Elphaba was more than used to being unconventional and showed no outward sign of her feelings. After a short time, she realized that she and Glinda were receiving no more attention than any other couple in the room. Others saw them, obviously, but not as a regular girl dancing with a green creature. To those who had no reason to believe otherwise, they were just two schoolmates enjoying a night out. This was the strangest thing of all.

Having registered that much, Elphaba did her best to shift her focus from the crowd and begin noticing other things. First it was the way her borrowed skirt swirled at her ankles, then it was how impossibly pale her arms looked, then it was that Glinda actually did seem to know what she was doing. She darted a glance downward and Glinda, grinning, met her eyes. After only a moment's hesitation, Elphaba grinned back.

­Fiyero only spoke to her once more, on the ride home. "Glinda says it was a success. What's your verdict?"

"Appearance shouldn't matter, but it does." From Elphaba, it was as close to an apology as anyone was likely to receive.


End file.
